Fractures
by CaffeineChic
Summary: Short unrelated snippet glances at J
1. Chapter 1

So here's the story. There is no story. These are actual snippets as oppossed to the last time I wrote a snippet and warbled on for 8000 words. These are wanna stories. They're either going to become fics or they're not. But they're all fragments that I needed to throw out of my head.

The song quoted at the end is West of her Spine by Bell X-1. Buy Music in Mouth. Seriously.

Anyhoodle. Away we go. Don't run too fast from the thread, I don't want any accidents at the exit.

She was asleep on his bed when he came home. Downstairs for a time and careless with noise, he'd been unaware of her presence. It hadn't disturbed her. He paused in the doorway surprised by her motionless form. The length of her hair spilled across his pillows, strands tangled wild around her face. She was curled in a ball. Tight and defensive. Her eyes scrunched against visions of the world.

She'd slept through his arrival. Concern more for that then any reason for her being there spread through him. He walked quietly to her side, crouching down in front of her. Fingertips stroked the length of her forehead, tucking her hair behind her ear with a feathered touch. She woke with a start, head shooting up, desperately trying to grasp her bearings as she struggled back into consciousness. His hand still held her head. His thumb rubbing slow circles against her temple.

"Shhh, Irina. It's just me." She blinked rapidly, her continued daze unsettling him. "Don't wake up." He leaned foreward to brush kisses across her eyes, his tone calm and soothing.

"I'm awake." Her voice was heavy with sleep. Dark lines under her eyes vicious against the paleness of her skin.

"Not even close." His whisper an army she could not fight. The battle against sleep lost. She lowered back down. Eyes closed. Expression relaxing. The exhaustion was almost tangible, wrapped around her frame and holding her still.

He frowned. Worried. He shrugged free of his suit jacket and tossed it on the floor and followed it with his shoes. He eased down next to her, face next to hers. He pushed her hair from her shoulder and neck throwing the long rope of it behind. His hand traced the curve of her side and come to rest on her hip. She unfurled at his touch, moving closer to his warmth. Incomprehensible murmurs slipped from her lips, words lost from sleep to the silence of the room. So much of his lifetime interwoven with the woman wrapped in his arms. He pulled her closer and followed her in to night.

_See how her hair spills over _

_like frayed ends of twine _

_All wild and and wrapped around her _

_like these wandering arms of mine_

_Now careful not to wake her _

_I trace back along the twine _

_To where her never endings sing _

_of too much of my time_


	2. Chapter 2

Next snippet.

Bear in mind that none of them are interconnected. They're individual pieces. I don't know which ones I'll be continuing yet. Rands, maybe I'll get very drunk and continue alllll of them biggrin.gif

She laughed easily as he his hand found its way beneath her tank top. He pushed it up to expose her back.

"I was asleep Bristow."

"Feel free to go back to sleep, I don't need you awake for this."

Irina angled her head around to glare with mock annoyance. "Oh really?"

"Yes." He kissed the base of her spine. "I'm just looking for something."

She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and grinned, knowing immediately what he was talking about. She sat up long enough to pull the tank off. She smiled wickedly at him. "Anything that I can do to help."

Jack waited until she had settled again before beginning his search. His fingers danced along her spine, following the sweep of the bone from her skull to her rear. Placing his hands on either side of it he started at the base and pushed his fingers out along her skin to her sides. Digits probing for his target. He worked up along her torso as she became more pliable to his touch. He eased the tension from body, focusing on his task. Eyes and hands studied her back intensely trying to remember where his destination lay. He thought he could hear raised voices shouting through the years. He'd reached just below her shoulder before he discovered what he was looking for. His fingers hit it and she cried out.

"You found it."

"My knot."

"Your knot."

"Tell me again."

He placed his mouth against it and inhaled the scent of her skin. She flowed into his veins and stirred his memory as she spoke. "That knot is thirty years old. From the first time we fought. Special reapperance for every time after. Tonight is no exception. You cause it. You make it go away."

He outlined the area, spiralling in and pressing harder at the knot. Untying it with the ease of experience, an apology in its loosened ends. An inch of her skin that responded only to him. He kissed it again as he slid his arms under and around her waist. This was his flag that claimed her as his, the country that she surrendered to him. 


	3. Chapter 3

  
She cried out as he slammed her into the wall. The force of the blow knocking a picture loose from its holding. It fell. Its glass shattered.

"With Sloane."

"Yes." She inhaled deeply as pain seared through her body, her collision with the wall the least of her problems. She forced herself to look at him, to meet his gaze straight on. He deserved answers. He deserved...more. "Yes, with Sloane."

Three words. Their undoing. She leaned heavily against the wall, unable to hold herself. She watched as the words left her mouth and hung in the air. She could see them, their shape, their jagged edges. She watched as they flew at him and sliced open his skin. They carved her betrayal into his flesh.

He stared at her without seeing. His vision clouded with unbidden images, torturing him. He didn't know if he'd expected her to admit it. Had begged with all his being that it hadn't been true. She became clear through the mist. His wife. The whore. Not just his.

"Why?" The question escaped before he could stop it. Did it even matter why? Did he even want to know?

She wiped at her face. Surprised to find it wet. She felt disgusted with herself. Not just over the tears. She wrapped her arms around her frame.

"He knew. Who I was. I don't know how. He just knew."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"No. Not really. But it's the truth. As worthless as it is."

"And Nadia?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"When, Jack? When would have been a good time to tell you about her? When you were barely restraining yourself from killing me? When you were framing me for trying to kill Sydney? When we thought we'd lost her? Would that have been a good time to mention that you might have another child but that I'd lost her?"

"You kept quiet about her to cover more of your own lies. Don't you dare try to paint it as anything other then you protecting your own agenda."

"I was protecting my family!"

"You don't have a family, Irina. Your apologies won't earn you a place."

"I haven't apologised. And I won't. Not for that."

"Irina Derevko. A life of no regret." He spat the words at her.

She laughed. She hung her head as the laughter rippled through her, the sound dripping not with elation but with delirium. She continued laughing as she met his gaze again. "Regret? What do I have to regret Jack? I fcked my husband's best friend to buy his silence. It changed nothing. I still lost you. And Sydney. Nadia. My eldest daughter hates me. My youngest hasn't had the chance to cultivate the same resentment because I haven't seen her since she was three days old. And you. You..." Her laughter faded and vanished. "What could I possibly have to regret?" Her voice hardened with trained resolve. "But if fcking Sloane bought me even one more day with you and Sydney then it was worth it."

"You bore the man's child!" The words exploded from within his chest. A human manifestation of her betrayal. The crux of his pain.

"Don't you think I would spill all the blood from my veins if it would guarantee that it was yours that flowed through hers?" She roared back at him. Her fingers balled into fists. Digging her nails into the palm of her hands. She drew blood from her lifeline. Felt it drip away. "It wasn't lust. Or love. I didn't cheat on you, not in the way other wives do. I didn't do it to hurt you. I did it to keep you."

Venom from his tongue. "I was never yours."

"Liar." Venom from hers. "Why did you fck Katya?"

"To hurt you. To lose you." Intention met reality. She was still there.

Her eyes found the picture that lay on the floor. Jack and Sydney. "You can replace the glass."

She closed the distance between them and gently pressed her mouth to his. She stepped away. "If the girls need anything, if you do..."

He nodded slowly. She was leaving. She wasn't glass. He couldn't replace her.

She paused at the door without turning around "If you truly believe that I was never really your wife, that Laura was a separate woman and no part of me, that we were never...a we...then why does it hurt you so much?"

She was gone before he could reply. 


	4. Chapter 4

"Stop fidgeting." His voice rang out in the dark.

"I can't help it. Our mission was a success, I got to set of some lovely explosives, you know how I get."

"Go to sleep."

She continued to toss and turn beside him. Failing not only to go to sleep but succeeding in keeping him awake. He turned to her and gripped her hips as he pushed her into the bed.

"Be still woman."

She grinned at him, her eyes heavy with desire, the adrenaline of the evening still pumping through her body. "You may need to lay on top of me to keep me still."

"Oh really."

"Yes. In fact, you may need to insert parts of you into parts of me, to ensure that I don't get up."

"No sex for you Derevko."

"Jaaaack." She all but whined as he moved off her and onto his back.

"That's attractive. Its 3am. I've had 15 minutes sleep in the last two days and we have to be up again in 4 hours."

"I can't believe you're turning down sex. This is unacceptable. I want a divorce."

"No. Now sleep before I smother you."

"Fine. But we're having sex in the shower tomorrow morning."

"If you insist dear." 


	5. Chapter 5

He'd moved to sit at the corner of the bed nearly an hour ago. She'd let him be. The years had changed him, changed them both. He didn't talk to her like he used to. He'd argue in his defence that she wasn't who he used to talk to. She couldn't fault him that. Not really.

She wrapped her legs around his waist. Pressing herself into his back, arms locked around his shoulders. He stroked the length of her calf, massaging the flesh that he held in his hands. She placed a kiss against his neck. "Necrophila causing insomnia?"

"What?"

"Sex with a dead woman, Jack." She smiled into his skin and waited.

"The isolation isn't good for you."

"Its...fine."

"Irina." He said her name softly. She'd been quieter then he'd ever known her to be since her arrival. He'd watched her all evening, running her fingertips along surfaces, staring at things around his home as she were memorising them, looking at him with the same intensity. She hadn't thought that he'd noticed.

"Alright. It's not fine." She drew in a breath. "But it's bearable. This shouldn't be so hard on you though."

"Shouldn't be so hard on me? Irina, you don't have to see your daughters everyday as they grieve your death. You don't have to watch Arvin Sloane treat Nadia as his own. You don't see the disgust in Sydney's eyes because she thinks I murdered you."

"No. I just have to stay away and pretend to be dead. You get to see them everyday. I get stolen hours with their father. My life is being stolen from me. This isn't what I want Jack." The anguish in her voice washed over him. He realised that he didn't know what she outcome she craved, how she wanted the rest of her life to unfold.

"What do you want?" He asked softly, barely more then a whisper, some part of him hoping that she wouldn't hear, that she wouldn't answer. He could feel the the rise and fall of her chest against him, her breathing sharper as the words ushered forth.

"I want to wake up and fall asleep with you every night. I want to see my daughters and hold them and explain the choices I've made in my life. I want to move that stupid plant from behind the front door but I can't even do that because this isn't my home. I want all this to be over because you're right, the isolation isn't good for me. That's what I want Jack." The words rang trite in her ears, she'd accepted that they might always. Words would never be enough. The rest of her years might not even be. She'd accepted that too.

Hot tears ran down his back, her vunerability seeping into his skin. He tried to turn in her arms, to see her, to comfort her, and to statisfy some dark place in him that continued to be captivated by the sight of her like this. He hated the part of himself that sought this evidence, this proof that she could feel pain as much as he knew her capable of inflicting. She tightened her arms around his shoulders, burrowing her face into the back of his neck.

"Don't. I just need a minute. Please."

The dampness continued. Her tears flowed through his barriers, dissolving the foundation of the part of him that held court against her. He pried a hand from its grip around him and kissed her palm.

"I'm not going anywhere."

She laughed softly. "Only because I have you in a vice grip."

"A mere coincidence." He meant it. She believed him.

He ran a finger along the sole of her foot, catching her ankle as she jerked away with a laugh. "You know I'm ticklish there."

"Where do you want to move the plant to?"

A smile landed gracefully on her lips. "The kitchen. It's not getting enough light."

"I'll move it."

The small gesture unstitched her perfect seems and she allowed him to turn, to see the water as it rolled down her face and over her mouth. He could reach see the threads that held her together, knew in that instant he could tear her apart. He reached forward and kissed a droplet that hung to her lips, he knew in that instant he didn't want to. 


	6. Chapter 6

She gripped the back of his neck with both hands, her fingernails digging into his skin. His fingers encircled her arms, tight and bruising. He felt a droplet of blood roll down his back as her nails pierced deeper. His hold tightened, the urge to hear a crack of bone seizing him. This is how they would always be, he thought, drawing blood and bruising. They'd kill each other. Or die in each others names. She moved an inch closer and kissed him, never releasing the pressure of her fingers. She drew back and found his eyes with hers. "That was from Katya."

He wrenched himself free from her hold and pushed her back violently. His expression hardened, rage coursing through his body. "You had an affair with Sloane, conceived a child with him. I have nothing to apologise to you for."

She lips curled into a mirthless smile as she held his gaze. "You only think I slept with Sloane. I know that I didn't. Can you say the same of yourself and my sister?"

He couldn't break from her eyes. Her words encased him. His head shook slightly as he tried to dispel them. His eyes bore into her, desperate to find a trace of deceit within them. He failed. "Sloane..."

"Lied."

The tips of his fingers started to numb as his blood iced, the truth hardening in his veins. He could have cracked and shattered, a thousand pieces painted with betrayal. Not hers. The world reshaped around him as he tried to grasp its new dimensions.

"Nadia?"

"Yours. Ours."

"You should have told me." His words were stilted. His mind still fogged and void of true comprehension of what was happening. "You should..."

A noise startled her and she broke his gaze. The sound of footfalls on the stairs. Two sets running. They burst into the room, the shadows of two dark haired children chasing and giggling. They ran around Jack, passed her and vanished back into manufactured memory. She heaved a great breath into her lungs. "I couldn't. It was too much."

He understood. Somewhere inside of him he understood what she meant. The brutal air that had hung between them dispersed and drifted from the room leaving them with the stain of their individual sins. Loosing each other to their darkness.

"What now?"

"I don't know. Katya...anyone else I...I never thought it would be something that I would have trouble forgiving."

"There was more to it then..."

She waved her hand to silence him. "Not now. Please." She tucked her hair behind her ears, passed a hand across her face to wipe the vision of her husband and her sister from her mind. "I can't leave until tomorrow. May I..."

"Yes."

She nodded and left the room, taking the stairs slowly. Ten minutes ticked by before he found he was capable of moving. The weight of everything that had transpired that evening almost more then he could bear. He made his way upstairs, towards her. Always towards her. The door to the guest room was slightly ajar. The extent of the damage to them evident in her choice of room. He should have kept on to his own room, should have let her be, should have taken the time for himself. She lay on the bed still fully dressed, still awake but facing away from him. He stepped in without speaking and reached for her, taking her feet in his hands as he removed her shoes.

"What are you doing?"

"You don't like sleeping with your shoes on." He dropped them on the floor, joined them with his own and lay down next to her. Silence hung between them. A hand found another and forced a thread of digits. She squeezed. He tugged.

She turned and kissed him, her tongue demanding entrance to his mouth. He opened to her and matched her stroke for stroke. They kissed with ferocity, sucking, biting. His hand lost in the length of her hair as he rolled her on to her back. She pulled back with ragged breathing, her mouth still a breath from his as she forced him to look at her. The air between them heavy as she searched for traces of her sister in his eyes and saw only herself reflected back at her. She closed the distance as hands reached for clothes. She tore at his shirt and shredded buttons as his hands found their way beneath her top. He sat up and dragged her with him, shrugging free of shirt before sliding his hands under her clothes, his hands tracing the lines of her body as he pulled her top over her head. Her bra followed suit as did their remaining garments. He lay her back down, kissing her again as he fondled her breast, the gentleness of his hand acting in counterpoint to the fierceness of his mouth against hers. She felt him hard against her, and sought him, gripping firmly, determined strokes matched with her tongue against his.

"Irina." He ground out her name, his hips thrusting him into her hand. He grabbed her wrist and drew it over her head, releasing her as he ran the back of his fingers down her ribcage and lower to between her legs. He kissed a line to her right breast, suckling her as his hand caressed. She whimpered at his ministrations, back arching as she pressed herself closer. The pressure building she pulled at him, needing him inside her, needing his mouth on hers again. He readily obliged, pushing his length inside of her. They both stilled momentarily at the contact. He began to move with intensity as she dragged her nails across his back, scratching, marking, urging him on. She came with his name whispering from her lips. He, with hers.

"I love you."

"It's that simple?"

"It's that complicated."

They moulded into each other. Nothing was solved but nothing was worse. Somehow that was enough to relax them into night. 


End file.
